


Ekbat de Sebat (or To Be Precious)

by JadedFalling



Category: Fifth Element (1997), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, As Per Fifth Element, Comedic Situations, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Impending Apocalypse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Is The Fifth Element, M/M, Moments of Comedy, Movie Played Straight, Strangers to Lovers, The Other Hargreeves Siblings Make Various Appearances, fifth element au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-03-17 19:12:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18971329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadedFalling/pseuds/JadedFalling
Summary: This is the Umbrella Academy+Fifth Element AU nobody asked for but everyone deserves okayAlternate Universe, NOT crossoverIf you've seen the movie, you don't need a summary. If you've seen the show, you don't need a summary. If you aren't in either of those categories, I just don't know what to tell you, bromandude.(Tags updated as needed)(The Explicit Rating is because I'm making The Fifth Element spicy)





	1. The President Isn't a Moron (But She Is Surrounded By Them)

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't be posting this since I still have two other wips that I haven't posted anything on in a while but I just really really want to okay, we green?
> 
> ♥

*

President Allison Beaumont took her seat behind the desk in the center of the Comm Room, keeping her movements as crisp and economic as the clothing of her station. She clasped her hands together in front of her. The thick cuffs of her dark grey (almost blue) uniform coat were inches away from the heel of her hands which kept her hands free to do so unhindered and in comfort. It also gave her wrists a deceptively delicate appearance, which she enjoyed. She looked good and it threw her opponents off to find that she was more than her pretty face.

Under her uniform coat she wore a wine-red waistcoat with six large, brassy buttons in two columns down the front from her bust to below her navel. Beneath the shallow vee of the waistcoat, a thin, plain, black shirt hugged her torso up to the base of her throat. Behind her left shoulder, her daily assistant was dressed similarly in the same colors at the same layers, only they wore a black turtleneck, a red scoop-neck tee, and their grey jacket was a crop. And since the overcoats and undershirts were mandatory, and there were six basic colors, they just assigned colors to days of the week to make sure she and her staff matched. Wednesday was their rotation day where the pattern started grey or silver, then brown, then white and repeat.

Three of her Generals lined up on her left side facing her, all wearing exactly the same General’s Uniform, only their bars and medals differentiated them. To her right were her head communications officers, all wearing their formless robin’s-egg blue tunics and white pants. Behind both groups, at the very back of the room, on three rows of two sets of benches, religious leaders from the area were seated.

Allison’s assistant informed her that another of her generals would be calling within thirty seconds.

“Hello, Madam President,” a disembodied voice filled the room.

“General, I need facts and I need them quick. I address the Supreme Council in ten minutes,” Allison said, getting ahead of any possible niceties.

“Okay, Madam president.” The voice changed track immediately, no longer primly respectful. “We have yet to receive analyses from the probes we’ve sent out. We’re doing thermonucleatic imaging as we speak. Visuals show nothing concrete, something more like a miniature nebula full of formless, possibly-burning gases. All we have at this time is that whatever it is, it’s growing.”

“That’s just great,” Allison muttered and sighed. “So you have nothing.”

“Nothing yet, but I suggest we shoot first and ask questions later. It’s on the edge of Federated Territory and has yet to even try to communicate. It’s unwanted and uninvited.”

“Thank you for your input, but I have an order, and that order is that you will do nothing until we have more information, hopefully from those probes you sent out,” Allison stated firmly, trying not to give away the level of exasperation she felt whenever she had to deal with action-hungry military officials.

“I have some information you might want to consider,” a man’s voice said from the back of the room.

Allison looked up and saw an asian-descended man with his hair slicked back and wearing a heavy-looking, floor-length charcoal robe with a large hood pushed back where it draped off his shoulders. He had it buttoned in the front so the only other visible bit of clothing was the high collar of his grey shirt underneath.

“Priest Benji Nelissen, expert in astro-phenomena and metaphysical sciences,” an almost robotic voice introduced over the speakers.

“Keep talking,” Allison told him and waved him closer once with one hand.

The priest strolled closer, revealing that behind him there was a kid of about sixteen – maybe eighteen, he was extremely baby-faced – wearing similar garb. His robe was more of a blazer that was shorter in the front and longer in the back, hooded, and buttoned only once near the middle to reveal a blue sweater underneath. He had no high-collared shirt to mark him as a priest, so maybe he was training.

“Imagine if you will a living embodiment of evil,” the priest said almost casually. “You can’t identify it because once you think you have, it changes. It does not want to be known. The only thing you _can_ know is that wherever it goes, death follows. Light snuffs out. Heat freezes. Life ceases to exist.”

Allison could feel herself frowning as the priest explained but when one of her generals opened his mouth, it deepened into a scowl.

“Then that’s all the more reason to shoot it first,” General Luther Martin said and Allison held up her hand for him to stay quiet, but the priest was already speaking again anyway.

“Evil begets evil. Shooting at it will only give it strength. Soon it will weaponize, and that’s why I’m here.”

Someone handed General Martin a slip of flimsy and he opened his mouth.

“It’s increased its mass by seventeen percent since the initial reading at the beginning of this call,” he said. Which worried Allison.

“Is this a theory, Father, or do you have something to back this up with? Because I really don’t have time for this,” Allison told him curtly.

“Time is of no importance. Only life is important,” the priest rebutted with. Which was redundant in Allison’s opinion, considering the topic of conversation.

She stared down the priest for a beat.

“General Staedert, fire once when ready. Just the once. I want to know what happens,” she ordered and received an affirmative from the general on the line.

And then one of the communications officers turned to her.

“Imaging reports show it forming into a planet shape with a solid surface. All viewable activity has halted. It must be anticipating the attack. Which denotes intelligence of some kind.”

“Terrible intelligence. Unreasonable, unswayable, anticipatory, and damn near omniscient,” the priest said, unbearably young face solemn.

Allison truly met his dark gaze and faltered.

“General, wait. Disen—”

“We are past that point, Madam President,” Staedert interrupted her.

“Then tell me what happened!” She snapped and glanced over at Luther, who was turning to look over the shoulder of an attendant at one of the comm screens. “Staedert!”

The priest dropped his head and shook it sadly just before Luther spun around, face incredulous and confused.

“The planet increased in size by two-hundred percent!”

“Again!” They heard Steadert order.

“No! Belay that! Whoever’s listening, _do not_ fire again!” Allison shouted, finding herself on her feet and turning her head toward the speaker on her desktop. “Staedert, retreat!”

There was no response.

“The planet is getting closer to the fleetships,” a quiet comm-tech informed the room.

“Staedert, you will retreat! That is an order! Get out of there!”

No response.

“Staedert! Re—”

They barely caught a whispered, “God.”

The line went completely silent and the click of an ended communication echoed in the silent room.

“Are you willing to take me seriously now?” The priest said and Allison looked at him, really. Their eyes met.

 _‘Preservation,’_ she thought. _‘He meant preservation.’_

“It will come no matter what,” the priest said, quiet and assured, clasping his hands behind him within the large sleeves of his robe. “We can only prepare to face it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No but seriously. This has been in my head for ages now. Since I watched Fifth Element for the hundredth time after having seen TUA. I just, couldn't resist. Just you wait. It's gon be fun
> 
> Anyway, I did a bunch of research on what to call these people without their adopted last names so I give to you:  
> \- President Allison **Beaumont** which is just French for "beautiful mountain"  
> \- General Luther **Martin** partly, the joke here is that "Luther" and "Martin" are surnames derived from a given name. And also there was that monk Martin Luther and I just thought it would be funny for Luther - the least back-talking Hargreeves sibling - to have an opposite homage to that. Also-also, Luther basically means "people's army" and Martin is from the Roman God "Mars" (god of war).  
> \- Father Benji **Nelissen** \-- one, fuck naming him benjamin. That's too easy. It's just Benji. Secondeth, Nelissen basically means "son of cornelius" so nice homage to Vito there.
> 
> Anyway, I have a bit of this already typed but I am fickle and flighty and have the attention-span of a gnat and the memory of a goldfish  
> I'll probably post the next chapter when I next need validation in my life lol
> 
> Validate me hah!  
> ♥


	2. Former Major David I. Katz and the Interesting Clothing Choices of Junkies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another morning in the civilian sector for retired Federated Army major, Dave Katz. Livin' the dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S TIME FOR DAVE
> 
> Something you'll notice as this goes along is that I've updated some of the things in the movie based on technology today. Why? Because I can and it's better that way. I do what I want. I leave other things for the _＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚aesthetic˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊_ of the movie. Grittiness, for example. While being v colorful, the movie is also the grittiest. I'm keeping the filth.
> 
> Anygay. Enjoy, dolls  
> ♥

David Isaiah Katz has never been a willing early riser. Seventeen years in the Federated Army did little to change that, even as it demanded him to be during active duty. But it had been just over six months since he retired and started working the civilian sector, and he couldn’t wake up for shit. He was probably five or ten minutes late to everything. It usually took his alarm _and_ every single noisy little thing in his tiny-ass apartment going off all at once just to rouse him. At least, it did on the mornings when he was actually asleep deep enough to count. Or asleep at all.

If it wasn’t nightmares it was insomnia.

Well, fuck him, right? That’s what you get for joining the FA right out of school.

 

That particular morning it was a nightmare. One he had often.

It was fire, billowing outward, like the bubbling surface of a star right before it decides to go supernova. Like the initial, almost inward blast of a craft exploding in the vacuum of space. Having dodged many spacecraft explosion from the cockpit of a fighter, he could see it clear as cloudless day in his dreams. The curling distortions. The clawing darkness. The intense reds, yellows, oranges, and at its heart, bright, all-consuming white. In his nightmare, death’s grin opened wide to swallow him whole, right down to his immortal soul, screaming toward him.

He woke with a start, gasping and flailing, shooting upright and staring into the dim nothing in front of him. Even with his eyes open, he swore that gaping maw was still coming at him, coming for him.

Before he could blink it all away and come back to himself, his alarm started beeping near his head. He glanced at the time on the tiny screen. Too-fucking early. He closed his eyes and forced a deep breath down to the bottom of his lungs, reorienting like his service-mandated therapist had taught him. When he let it out slowly from pursed lips he also opened his eyes and did a quick inventory of his surroundings. Random clutter, personal effects thrown haphazardly on every available surface, that stupid glittery mobile someone had jokingly given him at his “retirement party,” his cat’s food and water dishes tucked away near the wall by the telescreen... Same shitty apartment.

The alarm hit it’s tenth repetition of consecutive beeps and everything in the apartment came to life.

Dave sighed and swung his legs around over the side of his little bed, groaning into his hands as he rubbed his face. He hated the fucking song blasting through his space. (Which is exactly why he picked it to play every morning, forcing him out of bed to either turn it off or just leave for work.)

His _“Quit Coach 360”_ whirred and dropped blended cigs into two of the three available slots. The other had his vape refill.

“When we work together, you succeed!” it chirped too happily in its stilted robot voice. It was annoying and overly chipper always, and half the time Dave wanted to put his fist through the control panel on it, but that morning, he pretended to fist-bump it from the distance of his bed. It was honestly helping him kick the smoking habit he had picked up his fifth year in the FA (some things were always the same), a task he had _almost_ accomplished before his marriage had fallen apart. The nicotine was the real problem but with the help of good old cannabis and vape pens, he was weaning off. His vape refills were already down to quarter-strength, which was a big thing since he was smoking the equivalent of two packs every day just before he retired.

His cat meowed from the other side of the door, a questioning little imitation of human cadence. Like a small _“hello?”_ It forced Dave to stand up, tapping the side of his fist to the police control circles on the wall.

**KEEP CLEAR**

“Yeah, trying to,” he mumbled.

If his cat wasn’t needing in and his bed hadn’t already slid away into storage, he would be tempted to just fall back into it. Annoyingly, his phone started ringing from the cradle on the wall. It was the tone of an audio call and Dave was at least thankful for that. He snatched it up on the way to the door. One minute, just one, to be able to think would be nice.

“What?” he answered with.

“Good morning to you, starshine,” a voice with a familiar dead sarcasm said from the other end just as Dave hit the button to the cat door.

“Hey there, Sweetheart,” he crooned at her, tipping the speaker of the phone down from his face as he did.

“Aw, Honey Buns, you haven’t called me that since basic.”

“And you haven’t called me that since you lost your triggerfinger. I was talking to the cat,” Dave shot back, wobbling over to the dispenser and relieving it of one of the cigs.

“Oh, right, I forgot you prefer a pet to the real thing,” Finger mocked. Dave needed to find a lighter or some matches or something. His brain needed the nicotine and tobacco to deal with his buddy. And the pot mixed in didn’t hurt.

“Yeah, well, pussy never strays.”

Finger snorted. “I forget you just left the service and then you say shit like that. If your ma could hear you, man.”

“She’d wonder where she went wrong,” Dave interjected with a snort to punctuate. “So. Let’s thank God she’s on the moon.”

“Hey, refresh my memory,” Finger went on, not even trying to fake a sense of casual, like he might be proceeding in a just-to-make-sure sort of way. “Do you even like cunt?”

He was probably asking because he was looking to set Dave  up.

“Naw, not my thing even a little bit. Cat’s as close as I get to pussy.”

Dave was poking around as he spoke but really started digging on one shelf when he thought he might have remembered leaving a matchbook on it. He found a joke trophy that said “King of Suck: you just fail at everything” his squadmates got him one night after a playful game of drunk laser ball where Dave couldn’t follow the ball for the life of him. Then there was his only framed wedding photo of him in his dress drabs, beret and all, a decorated officer standing proudly at the side of a shorter man in a white, three-piece, tailored tux.

He’d thought it had been the kind of lasting love his parents had before his dad died, and once he was promoted to Major, he had popped the question.

“Cat’s as close as you get to anything, these days,” Finger grumbled. “You need to get out more. You’re not seriously still pining over that cheating fuckstick?”

Dave didn’t answer, moving on to another shelf. The matches had to be nearby. He never tossed them anywhere else.

“Get out of your apartment and meet someone. Or fuck around a little at least. There are billions of guys on earth alone that you could screw.”

“I don’t want billions, dickwad,” Dave snipped. “I just want one. One that will stay the night, indefinitely. Someone perfect for me.”

He found the matchbook and half were missing but that didn’t matter. He ripped one out, struck it, and lit the end of his cig with a long inhale.

“Well, you know what they say about finding your Prince Perfect,” Finger said, completely unsympathetic. “You gotta fuck a lot of assholes first.”

Dave coughed out a laugh on the exhale.

“Fuck, Finger, you tryin’ to kill me??”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” Dave could just imagine his shit-eating grin.

“What best?” He asked, grinning himself. Finger chuckled.

He left the cig hanging from his lips and scratched his fingers through tangled curls that Dave had barely allowed to grow out longer than army regulation. Enough to be unruly when not styled out of the way. He caught sight of part of a familiar face and tugged a glossy free from the haphazard pile of shit.

“Eugh!”

“What? What is it?” Finger asked.

It was a picture of Finger shortly after his finger had been patched up. There he was in his BDUs sans jacket, thrusting out his slightly blood-smeared hand, last two fingers curled and the fore completely missing from the first knuckle up, effectively flipping off the camera from close up. His stumpy finger was a mess of field work, ugly stitching, swollen flesh, and pink-tinged regen goop smeared over the mess.

“Just found an old photo of you,” Dave mumbled around his cigarette end, before lifting his hand to take a long drag, the cherry burning bright. He reached over and flicked the ash into the sink just as Finger spoke.

“You sound mistaken. Had to be one of you.”

Dave scoffed.

“Anyway,” Finger said, serious and monotone again. “I need you to bring the cab in for a six-month overhaul.”

“Hah,” Dave laughed, once, loudly. “Yeah, right. Don’t need it.”

“Katz—” Oh no, he was in trouble now. “I was your number two for at least a thousand missions. I know how you drive. Bring the cab in. Today.”

“It’s a cab, Finger,” Dave almost whined. “Not a fighter, not a carrier, not a frigate, and definitely not a destroyer. You think I can’t handle civilian transport?”

“I think I know how you are. You don’t know the definition of sane,” Finger accused and Dave couldn’t help giving his kitchen unit a _'touché'_ look since his boss and sometimes buddy couldn’t see it. “How many points you got left on your license?”

“Fifty-something for sure,” Dave confidently lied and immediately took a short drag.

“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” Finger mocked and Dave knew he didn’t believe him. “Bring the cab in. Before lunch.”

Dave sighed.

“Alright. Alright,” he groused. “Before lunch. Got it. See you then.”

And he hung up before Finger could say anything else.

He was gonna be extra late but whatever. It was Finger’s fault anyway. He finished off his cig and dropped the butt into the waste collector next to the sink.

He needed to get dressed and as soon as he reached into his tiny closet for a shirt (the brightest fucking green without being neon or lime) and a pair of comfortable tac pants, a voice blared over the tv. He regretted – just for half a second – teaching the cat how to turn on the stupid screen.

Diego Diamond’s voice, obnoxiously loud and exaggeratedly accented (or maybe Dave was just biased since that’s all his customers ever wanted to fucking listen to), filled the apartment, advertising a contest. The cat’s tail flicked about on the rolled out bed as she watched and purred. She clearly had a higher opinion of the man and his...extravagance...than Dave. (Not that Dave hated it, per se...)

He pocketed his phone, his multipass, his vape and the refill, and he stored away his matches and the other cig in a tin for later. He would holster his gun off the wall on the way out. One last check and he turned that direction.

“Don’t watch too much of that shit, Sweetheart,” he called back to the cat. “It’ll rot your brain.”

Upon opening the door, he was met not with an empty hallway but instead his perception of the hall shifted and revealed itself to be a picture likeness attached to a tweaker’s head. The guy was practically vibrating. Clearly he aching for a fix.

“Gimme the cash!” He demanded with a grin adjacent to adjusted. In his hands was a high powered rifle, obviously not something a citizen should have been able to get their hands on.

“Ah, hey! Been here long?” Dave asked cheerfully, pressing his shoulder into a lean against the doorframe. No need to rile the poor guy up.

“Y-Yeah, yeah, long enough,” the guy stuttered, and shoved the barrel of the gun into Dave’s face. “ C’mon! Gimme the cash!”

Dave wasn’t scared, wasn’t even upset. This guy wasn’t the first. Since he’d moved into this section of apartments, Ms. Dovel kitty-corner across the hall had started coming over with home-cooked meals and baked goods in appreciation for his running interference.

“Is that a Z-140?” Dave questioned, already knowing the answer,  but saying it with a smile like he might if he were chatting with an old service buddy. “Alleviated titanium. Neuro-charged assault model.”

“Yeah? Yeah!” The guy nodded, confused.

Dave had to clench his teeth on the grin that would give him away.

“‘S’a good thing for me that it’s not loaded,” Dave said, carefully keeping his smile friendly.

The guy’s near-constant vibrating paused for a full beat.

“What?”

“You have to—” Dave almost laughed. “The little yellow button? You have to press it.”

The guy laughed nervously, glancing down at the gun. He almost didn’t deserve what Dave was doing to him. Ah well, he was threatening civilians and probably going to kill innocent bystanders with his idiocy.

“Take your time,” Dave encouraged. The guy’s shaking actually got worse as he glanced between the button and Dave’s face. Dave moved to lift the arm he wasn't leaning on. “Do you want me to—?”

The guy did not. He shoved the rifle more insistently back into Dave’s face from where it had drifted slightly to the side. And then, he very carefully crept his thumb to the yellow button and pushed. The gun clicked and he laughed. Dave allowed himself the grin he’d been holding back.

“There! Now, gimme the cash!”

Dumbass. Good thing Dave was here.

The rifle whirred and the charge powered down. The guy stared at the gun in worry. He had no idea. Not a fucking clue.

Dave curled up the arm he’d dropped down next to the doorframe, the one he’d hidden with his body as he’d taken his handgun from the holster hanging on the wall there. The barrel of his own gun tapped the guy’s chest, pointed up right under his chin. He’d let himself get too close to Dave, and now his gun was unloaded and another was ready to blow his brains out the top of his head.

The guy raised his trigger hand up in surrender.

“That,” Dave said patiently genial for the situation, “is a very dangerous gun. And since I have the certs for it, I think I’ll hold onto it for you.”

He straightened up, keeping the barrel of his gun to the guy’s chest, now pointed to fire into his heart. A quick press of a release on the wall had a storage rack dropping down. He carefully took the rifle from the would-be mugger and added it to his (growing) collection. (He’d probably have to start selling them back to the army soon.)

“You know, that’s a nice hat,” Dave said, really taking in the ridiculousness of it wobbling around on the guy’s head as he tried to discreetly shuffle back.

“Yeah? You like it?” The guy asked, all nervous smile and shaking croak of a voice.

“Tell you what,” Dave went on, feeling a bit of genuine amusement creep into his grin. “If you come back three months clean with a sponsor, I’ll pay you for the gun.”

“Really?” The guy said around the teeth he was grinding. He was maybe coming down off something or higher than shit and shocked and still terrified, but maybe less so with Dave’s offer kindly presented.

“Sure, just bring me proof,” Dave said and nodded, serious.

“I’ll– I’ll look you up!” The guy chuckled and did a kind of little dance away before sprinting the rest off the way down the hall.

“Major David I. Katz!” Dave called after him, hoping the guy would take him up on the offer. After the first few confiscations, he’d started trying to give incentive to these people to get their shit together.

He holstered his gun and transferred the rigging to his thigh.

Of all the ways to start the day...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, playing with the hows and whys of Fifth Element is so much fucking fun. So much of the movie is just accepting what you're presented with at face value and so like, the possibilities are fucking endless. I am taking **full** advantage
> 
> (Fun fact, his middle name is Isaiah because I have an original character named David whose middle name is Isaac and I felt like doing that for myself and my one friend reading this who might get a kick out of it)


	3. We're All Doomed Probably (And Five Is A Precocious Little Shit Who Needs A Toddler Harness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben tries so hard but the movie dictates it was all for naught at this point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man I'm just flying along on this happy little project which is just weird but I'll take it  
> It's good escapism.  
> Fun  
> Easy.  
> Fantastical  
> Sci-fi
> 
> ♥

 

“According to my observations and Five’s meticulous calculations we have approximately forty-eight hours.” Ben informed the President as he gently took a large, leather-bound tome from Five and cradled it down onto the desk. “Five could give you the exact time down to the minute but right now what’s important is what I’m about to show you in this book.”

“What happens after forty-eight hours?” The President asked, glancing between Ben and Five, just behind and to the left of Ben.

“Total annihilation,” Five said back and Ben just knew he had one of his condescending, creepy, little sneers pointed at the President. Ben had to resist rolling his eyes at his fatalistic little companion.

“It will have adapted to the environment and weaponized itself,” Ben explained more solemnly, trying to convey the actual gravity of the situation. “Theoretically, it will become unstoppable at that point.”

“Theoretically?” The President glanced over at her congregation of generals, gaze lingering on one in particular. (Big, blond, muscular.) Ben knew he was losing her by the doubting tilt of her shaped eyebrows.

“Yes! Theoretically!” Five interrupted. “Every time this has happened in the past no one has been stupid enough to let—”

“M _a_ d _am_ President,” Ben pointedly interrupted Five as the woman herself blinked at him in shocked offense. “What we’re trying to say is that this thing, this...possible entity... It has no goals beyond extermination. It doesn’t care for money or power or material goods. It just wants to eliminate life, all life, in its path.”

“So, what? Father? If it’s that...evil? That motivated? Or powerful? Or unbeatable? If this thing’s coming for us, all of us, and it can’t be stopped or reasoned with, then what you’re telling me is that there’s nothing we can do?”

Ben blinked once at her. There was a scoff behind him and he knew, just knew, Five was rolling his eyes and turning away.

“If you’d let me get to that, Madam President, I could show you,” Ben said as calmly and diplomatically as he could. Recent years of interacting with only Five and the Mondoshawans had made it harder to behave in normal, socially acceptable ways.

Allison eyed him and he could tell she knew he was trying not to lose it, to be the adultier adult out of the three of them.

“Allison, please, if we are truly in as dire of a situation as you claim,” she said to him very wryly, but her eyes crinkled and suddenly Ben found it a lot easier to speak to her.

He reached out and flipped open the book to where the ribbon bookmark parted the pages. He came prepared, motherfucker.

“Call me Ben, then,” he offered with a placid smile.

“Ben—” President Allison dipped her head. “—What am I looking at?”

“The key to stopping this evil.” He pointed at each part of the drawing as he spoke. “Four elements, with a fifth element placed at their center. All within the Mondoshawan’s possession.”

President Allison’s eyes got big and her lips thinned.

“They’re on their way here now. I’m their contact on earth. This has been...for the culmination of my life here, three-hundred-years in the making.”

Ben could see President Allison opening her mouth to speak, maybe berate them for not saying anything sooner.

“But—” Ben bulldozed on. “—It’s been thousands of years expected. This is not the first cycle. Not even the fifth. This fifth element, this supreme being, has been the ultimate warrior against evil for...an undated number of years. Created to protect life, when surrounded by the four elements, the fifth produces what our most ancient ancestors referred to as ‘the light of creation.’”

Ben had more to say but it hit him in that moment exactly what all of his teachings meant. Creation. Birth. Light. In its purest sense, life. Energy. Abstract and intangible. Something known and unknown. Terrifying and beautiful. His mouth hung open as he stared at the upside-down rendering of the altar where the fifth element would be activated. He forgot words.

“Bullshit,” President Allison interrupted him and he barely glanced up at her deeply skeptical and frowning face.

“It’s not bullshit,” Five called from where he had wandered to the far corner of the room, one that was smaller than and adjacent to the one they started out in. “I’ve run the calculations, checked and rechecked the alignments, and the ancient book has predicted an event to the day, and almost to the exact hour, from thousands of years in the past.”

“There’s documentation, limited but it still exists, of this happening before. My order has been carefully guarding this secret and passing it on to one or two others for centuries.”

“But why? If you knew it was coming and knew how to prevent it than—”

“For the same reason the Mondoshawans removed the elements from their resting place with the altar years and years ago!” Ben exclaimed and angrily flipped to the next page in the book, a likeness of the one before but dark with a misshapen form in the center where the fifth element had been drawn in the one before. “If evil stands in the center then light turns to dark, all life to death, forever. It will stop at nothing to get what it wants. And if any of the wrong people throughout our dubious history had a hold of this? Imagine for a second what someone could have done if they were persuaded to destroy these elements? If they thought they would get something out of it? Too many people just want to watch the universe burn.”

Ben hadn’t outright said it but by the little ‘o’ of President Allison’s mouth she understood what he was saying. If Ben hadn’t believed it gravely important and if, for one second, he didn’t trust her, he wouldn’t have come forward.

“Madam President,” the blond general stepped forward, holding two fingertips to his earbud as he did. “I’ve just received a call that there’s a Mondoshawan ship requesting entry to earth’s territories.”

“Let them through,” President Allison said, looking over her shoulder at Ben even as she turned her body toward the general. “With warm regards. And send a couple frigates with fighter squads on them as a cautionary escort.”

She only turned her attention away from Ben long enough to impress with her gaze the gravitas of their situation to the general speaking to her, some form of silent communication the two might have perfected. Then she was fully facing Ben again.

“If these...Elements are as important as you claim, we will need them here as safely and hastily as we can provide. Discreetly.”

“Their importance is...unnameable. Especially the fifth. Neither can...work without the other, but the fifth...is... The fifth is...”

“Precious,” Five interjected, back to his usual heavy brand of seriousness. “Absolutely precious. This—” He gestured to the large book still open on a depiction of the activation of the stones. “—is about a tenth of what is known about the fifth element. Think about that. This little book that is mostly drawings, is a significant portion of our recorded information.  What isn’t known could fill _terabytes._ And only the fifth element can tell us all of that. Ancient knowledge. Parts of our universe. Our history. Possibly information on life, death, the nature of souls. Purpose. It’s astounding wha—”

“That is _enough_ , Five. The fifth element isn’t a science project to be _poked_ and _prodded at._ We’ve discussed this.”

“Do you have any idea what advancements we could—”

 _“FIVE._ We have discussed this. You’ll understand after we complete the ritual at the altar and the clock is reset on this subject.”

“What I understand is that we have a narrow window of opportunity to study something that hasn’t ever been studied and you say we can’t because of some several millennia-old guidebook no one has thought to question since the beginning of fucking time!”

“Fathers?” President Allison questioned with a pinch in her brow and to her lips just as Ben rounded on his mentee.

“Disciple actually,” Five drawled but he was eyeing Ben with a tightness around his eyes.

“Listen here you little shit,” Ben hissed quietly at him with a smile, getting up close and blocking off their conversation from everyone else. “You’re speaking of things in which you have little clue on the subject matter. I took you under my wing because you’re smarter than even you understand if you would just shut the fuck up and stop pretending you’re always the most intelligent person in any room you just _happen to grace_ with your presence.”

Five opened his mouth to retort, angry and offended and probably a little hurt. Poor kid was all screwed up from his parents and his teachers before Ben took him in. A degree in advanced mathematics by sixteen and now barely twenty-one and still catching up on learning how to interact with people. If he couldn’t learn what Ben was trying to teach him about the intrinsic value of life, well... Ben would have to find someone else and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about little Five.

“Humble yourself before the universe decides to do it for you,” he muttered before leaning in to utter, barely louder than an exhale. “Do you really think I’ve taught you anywhere near half of what you need know? Number Five, you will learn more as soon as you stop fighting to.”

And then Ben stepped back and regarded him, cool in the heat of Five’s frustration. Five immediately glanced around the room at the much older adults surrounding them. His face flushed even redder.

“You chose this time and this place with your actions and words,” Ben placidly reminded him. “Always be conscious of setting and how it will affect the consequences of your choices.”

Five glared at him but it held no real anger toward him.

He had embarrassed himself.

His eyes dropped and his hands went to the pockets of his slacks.

Ben turned back to The President to find her regarding him with shrewd dark eyes. Five had gotten what he wanted for Ben knew that soon questions of ‘whys’ and ‘why nots’ were going to follow in the wake of that look, of Five’s frustration.

They were stalled by the general from before.

“Madam President, the Mondoshawans have been attacked. They’ve sent out a distress signal and our fighters are streaking toward them but it’s unlikely they’ll make it in— Yes, yes, hold on. Mangalores. Mangalore warships have been spotted streaking away from what looks like a planetary crash site. Unclear whether there are survivors. Two fireteams have been sent after the Mangalore ships. The frigates are almost to the crash. They’ll notify us when they’ve got boots on the ground as they investigate.”

Ben collapsed into a chair that he had originally pushed back from the desk.

“We’re doomed,” was all he could think. And he’d said it out loud. He felt Five squeeze his shoulder, just a little too hard, but a glance up at him revealed a cloudy gaze and the fearful thinning of lips.

Ben immediately felt bad for treating him like he was heartless. The poor kid was just uncertain and ignorant.

“Father— Ben, I think you two should head home, rest. We’ll investigate the crash and notify the Modoshawan Commission of the attack,” President Allison said, now standing and walking toward Ben with a sympathetic posture, hand reaching out for his other shoulder. Ben grabbed at her hand with both of his, a desperate move he almost wished he could have stopped himself from making.

“I— No, I have to stay. I am their contact on Earth. I can’t go home. We’ve been waiting just over three-hundred years for them to return with the elements.”

“Father, you need to go home. We’ll contact you with what we find. For now, we’re closing all borders with a general state of emergency. Sensor sensitivity will be increased to alert for any possible warships in our territories. It’s been an emotional couple of hours for you. I promise we’ll notify you as soon as we can.”

Ben wanted to protest but this was The President. He could only hope that she continued to stay true to her word.

Five gathered the book and an army escort patiently helped Ben to his feet. He felt like a hundred-pound weight had been dropped across his shoulders.

He passed the hulking general from before as he stepped back in from the comm room. Ben tried to linger, tried to turn back around, but he was nudged along and, ultimately, it was better for him to just leave without a fight. Fighting would only get him in trouble.

He had to be his own example for Five, anyway.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was barely read through much less edited so if you see anything wonky tell me
> 
> A bit of Benji's perspective! Five is and always will be a little shit. But he'll learn some stuff along the way.
> 
> Next chapter is THE FIFTH ELEMENT'S INTRODUCTION HOW EXCITING
> 
> By the way, if you're unable to see these guys as not-siblings when they're not (as in, within the context of this story, none of these people met until they were well into adulthood and have never and will never be related as siblings, adopted or otherwise), then this story isn't for you because everyone is going to perv on Klaus just a little  
> As much as people kind of perved on Leeloo within the movie (esp that General guy), but maybe a little more because I am both wildly attracted to Robert Sheehan and devotionally in love with my first crush Milla Jovovich (as Leeloo) so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Everyone is going to want Klaus, is what I'm saying. In some form or another.
> 
> ♥


	4. Luther Is As Luther Does

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These idiots should have just called Ben. Enter the perfection that is Robert Shee- I mean, Klaus!  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all just really don't care about poor Benji do ya  
> Naw! Naw! I play! I play! JK
> 
> no but seriously, one comment last chapter. Poor Benji.
> 
> Anyway, I present to you adoring fans! Klaus! Through Luther's POV.... I hope I nailed it.
> 
> ♥

 

The head scientist General Luther Martin was meeting to revive the only survivor from the Mondoshawan crash was not what he had been expecting.

The man was very monkey-like. And this was coming from the guy who had been called Gorilla-man in school and basic, on account of his broad shoulders and his ability to pack on muscle like a bodybuilder getting paid to.

(He didn’t even need to try that hard to. His personal zen was just putting himself through his paces, finding his limits and either maintaining them at that peak or trying to summit them all over again.)

But where Luther was all gorilla-strength, this guy was more like a very excitable chimp. He hunched over as he walked, like at any second he was going to drop onto his hands and spring forward. His legs seemed a little too long for his short stature, and his arms a little too ungainly for his chosen profession. And then there was his face.

Ears that stuck out and a round face, especially in the jaw region. It was like he never lost the baby fat of his childhood, even though he had to be at least a couple decades older than Luther. Streaks of grey stood out in his dark brown hair as it was combed meticulously back from his forehead. A thick-rimmed pair of round glasses sat on the end of his flat nose.

When he grinned, so excited to see Luther, it was like his thin, pale lips peeled back to show disturbingly white teeth.

He introduced himself only as Doctor Pogo and squeezed Luther’s hand with strong, knobby fingers.

Within seconds of beginning their trek to the regenerator's room Dr. Pogo’s face was flushed high up on his cheeks, either from the exertion or his babbling excitement.

Luther knew the guy was thrilled to show something off, but Luther only understood every fourth or fifth word out of the doctor’s mouth.

He was suitably unimpressed when they met up with the transport team bringing in the survivor as they walked down the hall to the regen-room.

“ _That_ is what you call a survivor?” Luther said in concern. It was just a severed hand encased in some type of of very old armor on a bed of some red gravel and covered by half of a glass tube.

Dr. Pogo was smiling extremely condescendingly at him with an answer.

“As long as I have living cells, then I have more than enough to work with.”

“Have you ID-ed him then?”

A slight frown creased Dr. Pogo’s brow for only long enough to say, “We have tried.”

Then it was slipping away and a manic-gleam sparkled in his golden eyes. He moved just a little faster toward the end of the corridor, slouching even more toward the ground.

“The computer claimed there was a malfunction. We had to run the override and go through each stage of the mapping manually. You see...” Pogo paused for a second here before licking his lips and seeming to be momentarily overwhelmed by the things going on in his own brain. “The average human has only the genetic knowledge passed through the genes of their parents, and their parents’ parents before them. Recessive and dominant genes that pair up at random, half from each parent, and produce a single offspring. Or sometimes two or three in the cases of identical multiples. Which has to do with how cells begin dividing after fertilization. Of course, there are spontaneous variations, mutations. And each individual offspring produced from one instance of fertilization is going to be different from their siblings. They may look similar to their family, or they may look completely different if two recessive genes meet. It’s one of the most glorious things about evolution, about mammalian evolution. _Humanity’s_ evolution. To be incredibly similar and fundamentally different.”

“Okay, Doctor, I vaguely recall high school biology. This all sounds somewhat familiar,” Luther cut in, sensing Pogo had a tendency to over-clarify if allowed. “Could you skip right to the point you’re trying to make here?”

Their procession had reached a set of thick, windowless double doors. They paused and Pogo turned to stare at him, like he was measuring Luther up and finding him only just satisfactory. He had to contain the urge to bristle, since he spent most of his childhood under a similar look from his father, until he joined the FA and rose in rank, made friends, formed a brotherhood of family connection. He made General for himself and his father could go screw himself in whatever sad afterlife he was currently haunting.

Pogo’s gaze softened and he nodded once, as if to himself.

“For lack of a better explanation, mostly due to the hurried nature of our examinations...” The doors slid open and Pogo lead the way into the decontamination chamber. “This being is human. Thaer DNA is human. There’s just more of it. Every possible combination, impossibly. There’s thousands of feet— of-of genetic information in this person’s DNA. It shouldn’t be possible and yet here it is. On every multiple test, every mapping, every imaging, there it is. There’s information we haven’t unlocked in humans _today_. It is entirely possible that there is genetic information about humans _from thousands of years in the past._ We won’t know until... Unless we can test it, isolate pieces of it, compare it to living samples.”

“Sounds like a freak,” Luther grunted as the lights switched over, bacteria killing rays creating an odd blacklight effect as gases hissed into and out of the room at the same time.

“Well, essentially yes,” Pogo said with a crease between his brows. “Or thae would be, since technically humans can’t have copies of chromosomes. Sometimes copies just create non-life-threatening variation but can affect fetal development in vital ways. Other times, without gene-therapy intervention in the early stages, the baby is never born. At first glance, you would think this being couldn’t possibly exist as is. That’s when we noticed that thae _don’t._ It appears, when we investigated, that when it comes down to it, this person, this being, thae have...inactive DNA strands. Nuclei that are purely storage. They don’t communicate, they don’t divide, they don’t transmit. And these little storage pockets are...paired with active cells with the active DNA. _And_ the active DNA is also longer than what we’ve seen. Not by much, mind you, but enough that there are mutations and unidentified genes contained within that we’ve never seen before. And I’m positive that there will be similar occurrences in the inactive strands. Especially from what we’ve been able to see in the inactive pockets.”

Luther wasn’t sure he was quite following. Theoretically, maybe it made sense, based on the little bit of biology he could remember from schooling. But, it sounded too fantastical, too much like magic and less like science. But what did he know. He was in the army, not sciences.

Doctor Pogo seemed to be shaking with barely contained excitement, though, at whatever all that information could mean. When the next set of doors opened to a coppery room with a console and the regen incubator dead center, Pogo ducked his body and darted into it, leaving Luther to follow. He joined the doctor at the console, where he was rapidly typing and tapping on the only available screen.

“General, if you direct your attention to the screen, I’d like to show you a rudimentary mapping of our findings,” Dr. Pogo said as Luther looked over his shoulder.

“This is the basics of what a human’s DNA helix appears like,” Pogo said as he initiated an animation of the two-strand twist everyone knew if they had graduated from a Federated Earth Public School or better. Pogo pinched the screen and zoomed out, all the way out to a diagram of the makeup of a basic cell. “Within a basic human cell.”

“And this—” Pogo emphasized with a tap of his finger to open and start a new animation, “—is the DNA of our survivor.”

Luther felt his eyebrows twist up with confusion at what exactly he was seeing. It was a detailed diagram of a human cell but clinging to the outer membrane but possibly encased within a thinner and even more outer membrane was what seemed to be a smaller nucleus. In the diagram, the inner nucleus...writhed. There was activity around it. Squirming and floating bits and jelly-like wiggling. But the outer nucleus was dark, dormant, yet with the same appearance as the inner nucleus. Almost.

“Of course, this is just a rough diagram, and further examination and imaging of our findings on the cells would yield a more complex structure I’m sure,” the doctor sighed. “But within our time limits so far, this is the best idea of what we have.”

He reached out and spread the screen with his fingers, zooming into it again to blow up the tangles of DNA strand inside the active nucleus. Then he dragged over to the inactive. And the strand within was squished, folded and twisted and tangled so tightly it wasn’t a wonder that there was nothing happening within  or around it. Pogo pinch-zoomed back out and let the animation resume as the bottom of the screen filled with writing, numbers, and connections Luther would be hard-pressed to even guess at understanding.

“Fundamentally this inactive nucleus’ DNA is the same model, same composition, as a human’s,” Dr Pogo explained. “There’s just... More. And in the same amount of theoretical space. Tightly packed genetic knowledge, almost as though thae were engineered.”

There was a thought. Luther had been following along but at that last part he turned a contemplative, almost suspicious eye onto the doctor. Who, or what, had created this guy? And for what purpose exactly? Was it really like the priest had said? Was this guy supposed to be some kind of weapon for humankind to use? Or a weapon for use against humankind?

“Is there any danger?” He asked lowly, eyeing a few of the diligent scientist around, seemingly focused entirely on what was in front of them.

“Danger?” Pogo asked, confused. Luther cocked his brow at the scientist, hoping to convey the implications he was thinking of without having to say it. “Oh. Danger. No, none at all. We ran it through many detectors before your arrival. All scans negative. The cell is, for lack of a more encapsulating and nuanced word, perfect.”

Luther met the doctor’s enthusiastic gaze and considered it for half a second. But only half, because he wasn’t a general without reason. They were under time constraint with disaster on the other end. Eventually, they were going to have to proceed.

Doctor Pogo turned a softly wistful expression toward where the team was finishing with securing the hand inside the regenerator.

“It’s possible that thae contain knowledge of ancient humans within thaer very DNA,” he muttered to himself.

Better now than later, Luther figured.

“Then here’s my official ‘go ahead,’” Luther said and slipped his multipass into the slot on the console right next to a big red button to molecularly renege on the proceedings should anything stray from the plan. “This guy better just be polite and answer all of our questions or he’ll go back to being cells under a microscope.”

“Activate the process,” Pogo turned and said to one of the operators.

And within the sealed walls of the tube, an intricate ballet began.

The grav field engaged, raising the remains several centimeters into the air as robotic arms unfurled on either side with soft whirs. Organic material was sucked down the tubes along the arms to the accompanying units that forged and compressed the material into the literal building blocks of life. Slice-by-slice, the arms worked as the computer imaged a rendering, a guide to what they were building from the DNA, and Luther watched it in real-time from the monitoring cameras mounted within the tube.

First the arm all the way up to the shoulderblade, then collar, vertebrae, ribcage, the other arm, hips, legs, and feet to the tips of toes. More tubes pumped fluid and the skull was molded, brain and all.

“And now the tissues and fibers,” Pogo announced as the arms collapsed away and instead one large and one smaller ring detached from the foot of the tube and stretched down the body. The first produced a loomwork of muscle-cells and tendons that stretched down to the second ring. The second ring lit up and slowly drifted up the body from the feet, adhering the fibers to the bone structure. Luther had never seen anything like it, despite having known that the technology existed, usually used to recreate unwaking dummies of anthropological mysteries and to grow exact replicas for those who needed to replace vital body parts.

Right in front of him, it was being used to print a person, a clone-but-not-a-clone. A marvel of the universe.

When shielding was slid over the tube and the cameras went dark, Luther glanced over at Pogo, who was monitoring the numbers and diagrams scrolling in a separate window on the screen.

“Just a bit of exposure, General Martin,” the doctor reassured. “A bit of UV to help hurry along the body’s production of healthy skin.”

The man leading the operation of the regeneration tube announced the body’s completion and Luther glanced over at the screen in front of the man where it showed diagnostic readings from the patient within, such as a slowly rising heartrate and what he assumed was an evening out blood pressure. There were some other easily monitored readouts but Luther didn’t know enough about the medical aspect of it all to know what they were. Probably things like respiration and brain activity. Those seemed like things to want to know about.

“Retract the shielding,” Pogo ordered, anticipatory and stately.

And oh boy, Luther was not ready for what he saw when that cover slid away.

Lying there unconscious on the bed – since the grav force was disabled – was the most beautiful specimen of a man he had seen. In person.

He was clearly tall and lithe, almost delicate, like the bone structure of a bird – except for his musculature, which was compact but defined. And there was a thick mop of silken curls spread out around the crown of his head. And what looked like miles of soft skin stretched over every inch. Luther was speechless.

When it came to sexuality, he was almost exclusively attracted to women. But this perfect man was in his top three on the already admittedly short list of men he had ever even considered.

He could actually feel himself gawping as Pogo carefully nudged his hand away from the red button it was hovering over.

“Perfect,” the scientist said, more _man_ than _science_ in his strained voice. The cameras in the tube for monitoring were still offline, and Luther could only assume at this point it was to treat the subject with dignity, since from their vantage, there weren’t any details easily picked out. Just the general shape of a very beautiful man. Of his face, even, Luther could only see the faint darkening of fuzz along a strong jaw.

Pogo gave the computer the command to apply thermal bandages and, with a gentle whine, bands of insulating modesty wraps were stretched across the unconscious man’s body.

“I’m, uh,” Luther floundered, knowing how his next words were going to sound when paired with the look he was giving the completely out-cold man in the middle of the room on display. “I’m gonna need some photos. For the records. Files. Archives and...everything.”

The Doctor’s expression became calculating (and a little judgemental) as he stared Luther down and Luther valiantly tried to maintain the eye contact. He really did need the pictures. He was just flustered. Sworn on his great great grandpappy’s remains, Luther was innocent in this request.

A high resolution camera lens extended externally from the foot of the tube and a series of five flashes lit the whole bottom of the machine as a short collection of photographs were taken. They only lasted a few seconds at most but they aroused the sleeping beauty into a gasping arch backward.

He collapsed with a warbling groan onto the crown of his head, panting frantically. The arm closest to their station began jerking and twitching, hand smacking the alon sheeting the tube was constructed out of. He arched and gasped, muscles pulling taut in what looked like pain.

“What’s happening?” Luther questioned, concerned. “Why is he acting like that?”

“It’s a nonepileptic seizure,” Pogo informed placidly, eyes trained forward. “It’s caused by a sudden spike in brain activity.”

“Up until a few seconds ago, all higher brain activity was offline completely, according to imaging and electro-sensor readings from the machine,” said the man managing most of the console. “All brain activity is continuing to rise at an unrecorded rate.”

Within the regen-tube the man had twisted around against the alon sheeting, tried to stand, and promptly collapsed upon ramming into the top. He was clearly confused and unfamiliar with the technology around him as he reached up and tried to touch the retracting arm of the camera on the outside. And then he was scrambling forward, dragging his palms around the arc of the clear tube, feeling out the space.

When he reached the other end, he turned and looked at the gathered collection of scientist plus Luther. Luther’s stomach swooped at the vision that met them.

Big green eyes, soft and animal – lined with thick, dark lashes and a dark, defined set of expressive eyebrows – bored into him from the milliseconds of eye contact they shared. He looked at each of them similarly, inquisitive and confused. And he spoke, strained and earnest, marked palms pressed out pleadingly to the imitation glass but mouth curling around a language Luther’s great great grandmama would have only called “tongues.” His words, whatever they meant, were rapid-fire and agitated, voice pitchy. He spoke lengthily. Like he was explaining. Maybe asking them questions.

“Do you know what language that is?” Luther asked Pogo.

“I’m afraid not,” Pogo said with a shake of his head. “Activate phonic detectors.”

“He just said Mondoshawan right? I recognize that.”

Pogo said nothing.

“How thick is that alon?” Luther asked aside.

“A solid centimeter,” Pogo told him, adjusting the glasses on his face, clearly nervous about why Luther might be asking.

Luther ignored him and removed his multipass, stepping around the console to approach their survivor.

He held up his pass, the swing of it in time with his steps caught the man’s attention.

“Hello,” he greeted, plastering on a smile and enunciating exaggeratedly, hoping something might get through. “I’m General Luther Martin of the Federated Armed Forces. We have some questions for you to answer. So if you want _out,_ you’re going to need to _work_ on your communi _cation_ skills.”

The man ducked downward, curls falling across his forehead as he crouched low, staring at Luther up through the ringlet strands. The irises of his (and Luther hates that he’s about to think this) super green eyes almost seemed to glow with intensity as he appeared to process, consider. Luther wasn’t sure what was going through his head.

Not until there was a low growling noise and he punched straight through the alon, twisted a hand around the pass and the front of Luther’s uniform and yanked so rapidly Luther’s face collided with the barrier hard enough to make him black out with his eyes open.

He collapsed and was vaguely aware of alarms blaring, shouting, and the ceiling above him swimming in and out of the grey technology-snow that was his vision. But he turned and he crawled until he bumped into the console, shuffling behind it. He lost time, seconds probably, before he could stumble up onto his feet and towards the corridor. There were more people in the pale green labsuit that streamed around him.

Out in the corridor, on the other side of the contaminant room, he fell back against the wall, feeling his face and bringing away blood-smeared fingers. His lip or his nose?

A quick glance back into the room and he saw the man crouched behind the regeneration chamber. The open regeneration chamber.

Their supreme weapon was loose. He had to get backup.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think _that_ pseudoscience was bizarre you should check out [this blogpost](http://moviesunderthemicroscope.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-not-to-make-perfect-being-fifth.html) about the actual scene because there's literally just a lot of nonsense that sounds vaguely scientific and at least I had to do actual refresher research on mammalian cells to figure out how I was going to pseudoscience it in a mostly believable way
> 
> Also, it's the future and as per his counterpart Leeloo, Klaus is a Supreme Being™ made corporeal
> 
> Oh fuck I just realized I forgot to mention that alon is a real thing from TOS Star Trek called "clear aluminum" and it's actually Aluminum Oxynitride (ALON, like how facial tissues are Kleenex and, in some places, all soda is Coke) and y'all should do the google because this shit is dope


	5. Time Not Important Only Life Important (But What Defines Life?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware the tenses! Klaus POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No really, the tenses are all over the place. It's intentional. ~~kind of~~ Time is not linear. Not if you're a supreme being stuck in the form of a mortal. But really, that's literally all the information that exists about Leeloo. She's a Supreme Being™ (funny enough I have memorized the alt code for the trademark symbol) (and the heart) and she was sent to humans in a mortal form to protect them against evil. That's it.
> 
> So I gave Klaus a backstory as a Supreme Being™
> 
> It's also pretty ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ about the nature of reality, the universe, time, and humanity's existence within those. Very abstract. Also Sad. Be ready for watery cryballs.
> 
> ♥

 

Klausillixtus was used to unfamiliarity.

He was used to losing time. Falling asleep and waking up to unrecognizable faces and clothes and buildings.

He doesn’t dream. Not in between.

But when he does it’s what he can hear or sense from his surroundings. They’re not dreams, though. Not really. And there are always stretches of nothing and he drifts, ceases to exist, forgets, fades in and out without consciousness or remembrance.

He has never been allowed to stay awake for more than a couple years but he knows what real dreams are from those times. They’re never like the vague sense-memory ones from his time when he’s not quite alive and not quite dead.

In that place everything is abstracted and universal and hard to hold, like colored smoke through his fingers. Always they are tinged with emotion and life and death and sounds that come from inside his mind only. He’s heavily attuned to the vibrations of the emotional collective wavelength. Like spider-silk. He’s not the spider. He’s just caught in an ancient web, unsure why he’s alive as he is.

When he has real dreams – awake every day and asleep every night – they are vibrantly colored and physical, visceral, like he’s living a new slice of someone else’s life every time he slips under soft unconsciousness. He never knows if it’s the makings of his own mind or the memories of people long past whom he never got to meet.

Sometimes he dreams of his own past. Of his parents.

Those are difficult.

He dreams of the soft touch of his mother’s calloused hands on his face, in his hair... He sees her kind, sweet face and thick, sun-blonde hair... Her flowery, star-kissed scent and the warmth of her arms surrounds him. He dreams of her eyes. They were brown, a dark, earthen brown, like rich soil. Her gaze was always just as soft as pillowy, fresh-tilled earth. His mother was a goddess of fertility and life.

In his dreams his father stands behind her, quiet and watchful as he always had been. Hard where she was soft, protection as she was salvation. Support for her give.

His hair had been like Klausillixtus’, thick and curled and wild. It had been worn long, the curls relaxed with weight. At night, it was an impressive waterfall down his back. And during the day, when tied up, it was an intimidating banner streaming in the wind.

Father had been their people’s leader. Klausillixtus has been, was, is always half terrified and half admiring of him. But when he turned his striking green eyes (like stone, like leaves, like the tall grasses that sprung early from the soil), dark and warm, on Klausillixtus at night and cupped his small chin in the broad of his palm, Klausillixtus felt only gratitude and love. Pride shone through him so brightly. It fueled Klausillixtus and made him glow from within.

His father was long-haired and battle-scarred; he’d never come against an opponent he couldn’t bring down with efficient words, couldn’t defeat at the sharp end of a weapon or with the power of his form. Men had never had to fight any of his father’s battles, not since he stepped into his position. Klausillixtus has never met a man with hair as long as his father’s. His father was a Lord of War and strategy.

He taught Klaus with staidness and restraint. Taught him everything he could. Everything Klausillixtus could learn. His father showed no restraint for his desire to know. Klaus has no scars. Has never seen a battle in person.

As it should be, his mother always told him.

His mother who taught him of love. She was the one who told him how he came to be, born of them but made as a gift, a key, a shield. A weapon, if needed. She cried when she said the last part.

He looks like his parents but contained within him is the codex to continued life. As long as he exists, life will continue. He is more precious than he knows. She never told him how she knew. She never got the chance.

Before his tenth cycle and not yet changing into a man, he is taken to the altar for the first time. The altar changes. Every time he wakes it changes. 

It terrifies him and he’s sobbing and only his parents taking his hands and walking with him keeps him moving forward. His mother sings – soft lullabies he can no longer remember the words to, only the hazy tune and lilting cadence of her voice. He wants to join her but he can hardly breathe. His father throws his shoulders back and holds Klausillixtus tight. Tears trickle from the edges of his eyes when he blinks. He stares down at Klausillixtus as much as he can.

Klausillixtus feels their fear like a slimy ball in his stomach. He feels their hope as a piercing ache in his chest. Their love for him most of all. It is a blanketing warmth that keeps him from shivering even as he sobs as quietly as he can.

He feels their pain, too. Their grief and disappointment and that unamable emotion when frustration stems from denial and bargaining and screaming into the dark knowing that nothing you do will change the outcome ahead of you. Similar to defeat. His father has never known defeat. Secretly Klausillixtus wonders if his life is punishment for his father. But then, what would his mother be punished for, because surely if it were true for him, it would have to be true for her. Otherwise, it was not just unkind of whoever made this decision.

Out of everything he feels from them, it’s their pride in him and his love and his devotion, it’s the sweetness of their devotion to him, that keeps him moving forward after they are forced to drop his hands. Both of them kiss him, his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, his hair. He can’t stop crying. He hates how his tears blur his vision of them.

At the stone altar he is guided up onto a rough-hewn platform. He’s not quite sure what happens. There are other people. There’s a man speaking. Klausillixtus can only stare helplessly at his helpless parents, clutching each other and loving him. Loving each other. Loving the world. He fears his own love isn’t enough, that they can’t feel it enough.

He’s scared.

Then the sky is black. A growing glowing expands from his gut, up into his chest, up up into his throat. It burns. It stretches him. He can’t breathe. He’s choking, drowning. His skin hurts. He’s going to rip apart at all the hidden seams of his body.

He screams.

Light.

When he opens his eyes, nothing is the same.

His family is dead.

He is afraid.

A man in too many colors with impractical armor and no hair at all greets him. He doesn’t trust this man who tells him he is needed again. They weren’t expecting a child. They wanted a warrior. They got him.

They didn’t think he’d be enough. The last time, his small underdeveloped body couldn’t handle the power conducted through him. He never woke up until that day, when they forced him to.

That first awakening, that second unlocking, had been the worst one. His parents were gone. There was no one to focus on as the power exploded through him. He received no reassurance, no guidance, no kindness. They wanted a weapon. He was treated as such.

Klausillixtus hated. For the first time in his short (ancient) life, he hated.

Everything had been harder and more painful for it.

Every step a fight, every moment a scorch, every word a lashing, every touch a bruise, every emotion a rending. And through it all he  _ hadn’t understood. _ Only knew rejection and control. Suppression and denial.

When he fell again, all used up once again, he learned later that it was decided that he be allowed to grow before the next instance.

He hardly aged. Hardly grew. He was called two new names, tacked onto the one he was gifted by the only people who truly loved him as he knew love. He lost track of how many years passed. He was never allowed friends, only confidants and advisors. His first friend betrayed him for him to learn this lesson, for this mentor was never supposed to be anything more than a manipulation, drugging his drink to keep him suggestible and docile, happy and uncaring of the gilded cage they kept him in.

He went back under into that sleep between sleeps feeling only cutting, gripping hurt.

His waking moments became about studying, isolation, smothering in the name of protection, training, being pushed to his limits and farther. He was passed between keepers. His favorites had been the Mondoshawans, whenever their time came. They lived long lives, were ancient beings. They let him breathe unhindered and cared for him, understood more than others who had been tasked with his care. Still there were oceans of void between them.

They told him everything they could about him. But so much had been lost to time and age, had been distorted and diluted through hearsay... Too much had died with his parents too long ago.

Klausillixtus would probably never know how he came to be, truly. He would never know how many star cycles had gone since he last saw his parents, since his birth. Only his waking moments were recorded. Thirty cycles (years, they were now called, but who knew if they were the same years as when he was born) had not yet passed from his birth to the moment he had found himself waking up in an unfamiliar body where the few scars he’d had when he last slept were gone.

He was more ancient than could be imagined. He was younger than thought possible.

This time he is tired. Deep inside he feels numb. As soon as he had spoken and that man had come up to him, Klausillixtus had known.

The Mondoshawans had been waking him slowly before the attack. He had been so angry, so afraid, aware but unable. And then blackness in a way he couldn’t comprehend. He woke in a desperately familiar place, all sepia tones and empty. The trees around had been achingly comforting. A little girl had strolled up to him, familiar and vast and unfamiliar. She had smiled sadly down at him where he sat in the long grasses.

_ “Where am I?” _ he had asked her. She had reached out and finger-combed his longer than usual hair back from his forehead. He had refused to let anyone cut it since the third (? fourth?fifthsixth?) time, wanting to grow it out in remembrance of his father.

She had worn a large, floppy hat and a loose, airy dress. Her bare toes had curled into the soft soil beneath them. 

_ “Home,” _ she had whispered to him. A smile had split his lips before he caught sight of her dark, sad eyes.

_ “You can’t stay,” _ had been the next thing out of her mouth.

_ “Please,” _ he had pleaded with her.

_ “This is not the first time we have met,” _ she had stated lowly, and reached out to cup his jaw with its short, small beard in both of her hands.  _ “It will not be the last. We  _ **_will_ ** _ meet again. Out of everything I’ve created in the universe I am most proud of you. You’ve grown so much. And they are so proud, as well, still love you so much.” _

_ “Who?” _ He had sobbed, reaching for her, catching her elbows.

_ “You know who. You’ll see them again. One day.” _

Then she had kissed his brow and he had woken with a gasp.

Arrogance and demands and control. These people never understood. He had been frantic, hoping they still had enough time. He was ignored. He knew when he escaped that they would try to contain him again. He hadn’t expected the weapons.

So he left.

He had one mission. He was going to find the priest the Mondoshawans spoke of. He was going to banish evil back to the void beyond light. And then he was going back to sleep.

The world, this world, the universe possibly even, was so different. More different. Different in a way he hadn’t expected. Fascinating. New. And still old.

It was all the same to him. The people were all the same, wanting to contain and point and use him.

Klausillixtus was used to losing time and waking up to change.

This time he took a chance.

He made a decision.

As bright lights were shined on all of him and noise blared him from every direction and currents of air blew his curls wildly up and around his face....

He tipped forward.

He fell.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was probably really weird
> 
> Basically, when Leeloo kind of sassily looks back at the police in the vent and then just saunters off along the ledge, taking everything in, that's when this is supposed to take place as, like, Klaus contemplating his existence, the world's changes and the unchanging nature of humanity, and it's supposed to be all half-memory and half-present and spotty, vague... Here, not-here, then and there, but nowhere and everywhere....
> 
> Like I said, I'm remixing The Fifth Element to fit around these characters  
> ♥


	6. Big Boom, Ba-da...Big Ba-da Boom (BOOM!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big Ba-da Boom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klaus and Dave finally meet!!! And oh boy is Dave already 1000% gone on him
> 
> I really really love this chapter but only because I get to write about how gorgeous Klaus is from Dave's POV  
> Enjoy that darlings ;)  
> ♥

 

Dave one-hundred percent intended on taking his cab to the shop. He swore he was heading in that direction. His route meandered and he might have picked up a couple easy fares in that direction, but that didn’t mean he was avoiding it all-together. He said he’d get there before lunch so he was going to get there before lunch.

He just planned on having a late lunch.

Only, his whole day was interrupted all plans tossed to the wind when something large _crashed!_ **_into!_ ** _his cab!_

His hands flew up to protect his head and the cab wobbled from the impact, drifting into oncoming traffic. Dave scrambled for the wheel, dipping and swerving around other cars, blaring his horn in warning until he saw a break and was able to jerk back up into the proper flow.

Something hadn’t just crashed into his cab.

Something had crashed **_in_ ** _to_ his cab.

The onboard was going wild, robotically informing him that he had had an accident. Fuck yes he just did. It also informed him that points were being removed from his license. And since he had lied to Finger about how many he had left, that could be a big problem.

“Yeah! Yes, I don’t see how it’s my fucking fault though!” He shouted at the piece of junk, swinging around and out of traffic into the clearance zone around a nearby building. He had to figure out just what the fuck had landed in the backseat of his cab.

He hoped to God it wasn’t a person.

He undid his harness.

_Please, don’t let it be a person._

Because if it was, there was no way thae were still alive. Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration but to hit so hard thae tore through his (admittedly flimsy) cab roof, there was no way serious injuries wouldn’t be involved. If thae weren’t dead already, thae probably would be soon without medical intervention. He reached for his tablet in its dock and opened up the phone to call for emergency services.

His heart was pounding wildly as he turned around, looking through the narrow window and not spotting anyone in the seat. Maybe it wasn’t a person. Maybe it was luggage or debris from something.

Fuck.

The terrified haze of a potential flashback faded back into the depths of his mind as his training kicked in. Assess the situation.

“Any survivors?” He called into the back, one finger hovering over the call button and the other hand resting over the control to lower the window if needed.

A mop of dark, curly hair slowly rose from the bottom of the partition. Then the most strikingly green eyes peered up at Dave from under those curls and thick, sweeping lashes. Tucked under them were the person’s fingers, tips curled around the edge of the division under the window with knuckles pressed to their cheeks. Those wide, mossy eyes cautiously stared into his own blue ones. Dave didn’t know what to do. He _forgot_ what he was doing. He should say something, right?

He frowned, stringing together enough words to ask this beautiful stranger if thae were okay, if thae needed emergency assistance (he should just call anyway).

And then the person popped up completely into view, laughing a thin, wheezy breath out in relief. Dave’s heart stopped beating. Oh. Oh no. It was the prettiest man he had ever seen. In real life. In person. His eyes crinkled as he grinned at Dave. There were small cuts on his face and scrapes on his arms but he didn’t seem broken in any way as he started talking in a language Dave hadn’t the faintest clue about.

He gestured excitedly, frantically miming and puppeting out some kind of tale. The story of how he had ended up in the back of Dave’s cab, maybe? He was animated. His eyes sparkled with his emotions as he re-enacted. His anger was fierce. His wonder was expressed in the way he widened his eyes and leaned back, as if hit by a blast. He smiled and it stretched almost from ear to ear, crinkled his eyes and made his sharp cheekbones even more prominent. Dave was enraptured. He felt a slow grin curling across his own mouth as he watched and understood not a damn thing.

Dave could listen to him speak for hours, the way his voice fluctuated between a high, reedy trill and a low, raspy roll through his rapid words.

He smacked ridiculously dirty palms against the glass as he came to the explosive end of his recount.

“Boom, yeah,” Dave repeated, literally the only word that sounded like a word to him. “I understood boom. Right here into the back of my cab, yeah. Boom.”

“Ba-da boom,” the man emphasized, nodding emphatically, wild ringlets bouncing off his forehead.

“Big boom,” Dave chuckled, unable to stop the way he mirrored the guy’s bobbing head. But his own curls were combed to the side and tamed into soft waves with a dollop of product so they didn’t bother him while he worked.

“Big boom,” he repeated to Dave slowly, sounding it out. “Ba-da boom. Ba-da big...”

“Yeah, doll, big ba-da boom.”

Oh, he was sweet, the way he giggled delicately, eyes shining with happiness. Dave wanted to reach out and touch, if only to check those little places blood spotted the surface of his skin. Dave’s jaw hurt from grinning so hard. They were communicating. That was something. This could work.

(And Dave’s brain could go fuck itself because fuck him, he couldn’t be doing this. Love At First Sight was such bullshit but right then, he could almost believe in it. The magnetism between them was undeniable. The attraction sparking in Dave was so strong and so light, so gentle, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Wasn’t sure what to do with this delicate, dirty, angelic wonder that had dropped in on him like a cheesy pickup line. Yes, this being clearly did fall from heaven, and by the roughness of his landing, yes it did hurt.)

“You’re lucky you’re not dead, beautiful,” Dave murmured, gazing into the man’s stupidly gorgeous eyes.

Too bad the police had to ruin everything, as usual.

Bright floodlights spilled into the cab from the front windshield, sirens bleeping warningly.

Dave’s good mood immediately tanked, crashing faster than it did when his PTS hit. He glared out into the light shining right into his face as they swung around to the side of his wrecked cab. The brightness was blaring, almost enough to make his hearing fuzzy.

Of fucking course.

A criminal.

Who the fuck else would fling themselves into traffic?

“Sorry, doll, looks like this is your ride,” Dave said, glancing up into his rearview mirror to watch his unintentional passenger.

The police chattering away outside gave the order to open his passenger door.

“I better do what they say,” he said to the man he was just now noticing was wearing hardly anything at all. Not real clothes anyway. “This could end really badly for both of us if I don’t.”

But even as he said it, he made no move to obey. He waited, watching the drop-in crouching close to the door the police were hovering outside of. He kept turning to Dave with confused eyes, the pouty downturn of his mouth was edging on desperation.

“Akta,” he kept saying softly. Pleading, is what it sounded like to Dave.

Dave really didn’t want to let him go but he really couldn’t risk it, not in his position.

The man sighed heavily and flung himself up and backward into the actual backseat. His eyes darted around and Dave tried not to stare at him in the mirror.

Then a sibilant, stuttering, thickly accented, “please, help.”

Dave’s chest clenched. Yeah, fuck. His too-good nature shrieked in protest at him when he opened his mouth, ready with an excuse.

“I’m one point away from losing my license, doll,” Dave croaked. He clenched his fingers on the wheel.

He made the mistake of glancing in the mirror.

Devastated green eyes shined against red-rimmed eyelids. The bottom lip of his despondent moue quivered.

“Pl-please,” he stuttered, voice crackling. He blinked and the tears gathered on the edges of his lower lashes fell. “Please. Help.”

“I, uh, I can’t,” Dave croaked.

Weak. Was he really gonna be like that?

The guy rubbed one hand over his eyes, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. It was a gesture of such helplessness, of hiding and resignation. It wasn’t the frantic desperation of someone who knew why authorities were after them. No, this was the quiet dejectedness of fear for what might happen and not knowing why it was.

Dave squeezed the wheel as hard as he could, held his breath, and let it all out as the policeman over the intercom stressed his request for Dave to open his passenger door.

“Fuck it,” Dave muttered to himself and reached over to engage the manual drive. He did it slowly and barely moved his arm so the police peering in wouldn’t see anything suspicious.

“Buckle in, doll,” he said, louder.

He didn’t wait for a response.

His foot hit the floorboard and the cab leapt into motion. The engine whined unhappily, not made for what he wanted to do with it. But it shuddered and launched up to speed.

“One– point– has been–  removed – from your– license– for—”

Dave gouged his fingers into the half busted panel above his head and ripped at the wires leading into the heart of the onboard above his head. He didn’t give a shit and he didn’t have time to. He giggled a little just to himself.

“God, this is so stupid.”

He just hoped the beauty in his backseat was being smart and strapping in. Their ride might end up a little bumpy and lurchy depending on how much of a criminal the police thought this guy was.

Turns out a lot of one because Dave had reassured him that if the police didn’t give chase after a mile then they didn’t care, only to have four squad cars on his tail right after saying it. And they were persistent. He swerved in a hard-left into an alley between building sections and they followed. Or at least one did. And with how narrow the tunnel was he really shouldn’t be going as fast as he was, but needs must.

He tried to drown out the insistent chatter from the backseat and nearly didn’t dodge the cop car that slid out in front of him.

“Listen, darlin’, I only speak two languages: bad English and worse Yiddish! So if you could please shut the ever-loving hell up we just might make it out of this!”

From his dash, the small screen of his weapons detector blared a short alarm at him and he looked down to see that the car directly behind him was getting ready to fire, having locked onto him. (And sometimes it paid to be a paranoid vet who invested money into seemingly “pointless junk, you’re a civilian now.” _Fuck you, Finger._ )

He made a snap decision to break through into whatever was above them and just deal with whatever happened to be up there.

It was a train.

Dave dodged it with a tight tilt and swerve, hearing his drop-in shriek behind him. They made it back into the flow of traffic, only the area seemed a little too clear of transports. Which made sense when he caught sight of a lurking squad car around the corner of the building to their right just before his detector blared at him again.

“Ohfuck! Duck!” He yelled as he curled down just as bullets began tearing through the side of the cab. He reached for the wheel and pulled it into a tilt with one hand, keeping his foot on the accelerator. The reinforced bottom of the cab should deflect most of the bullets that were being fired at them. There was some startled whimpering from the backseat but he would have to worry about that when they got out of their situation.

When they were across the gap and once more hidden by buildings, Dave found he was clenching his jaw when he sat back up. Because who _the fuck_ did they _think_ they were using _deadly force_ on? He was a gotdamned decorated Federated Army vet, retired with full honors and the rank of Major. Not to mention, they were putting a civilian directly in danger. Criminal offenses or not.

Dave was pissed.

He did not serve seventeen years and live through too-many-to-fucking-keep-track-of missions for _that_ bullshit.

He shrugged into his harness and buckled it, very deliberately keeping himself calm.

“Alright, then,” he muttered. “If you think you can dance with the big kids, let’s move up a weight class. Ain’t no minor-league shit here.”

He didn’t bother to call anything back, hoping to God that his passenger wasn’t completely clueless (and he was realizing that what he said would probably go over the guy’s head).

When he saw his chance a split second later he dove. There was a heavy thump against the partition behind him. Oh-fucking-well. He had the headstart and if they could hit the industrial fog below, they could hide. He just had to keep speed.

Dodging stacked layers of traffic while traveling in a perpendicular direction of their flow wasn’t that hard when compared to the things he’d had to do during his service. Hurtling around planetary debris, other fighters, and explosions at a frictionless, barrier-breaking speed was nothing compared to what he was doing with his cab.  Then again, his fighter’d had more finesse.

“Make the fog,” he whispered to himself. “Just gotta make the fog. We’ll hide there. _If_ we make the fog.”

He almost slammed into the top of a bus but with a jerk of his wheel he corkscrewed around it and they were in the fog. He practically had to slam on his brake and jerk back to level once there, dodging a huge beam with a roll and swinging around a corner. They were effectively in the city’s underbelly and as long as he could tuck the cab away into a hidey hole of some sort, they were in the clear.

Dave almost laughed when he remembered that this day of all days he’d started it off by fist-bumping his police control circles. _‘Keep Clear’ hah!_

And then he spotted it, glowing from between more beams and near a pile of trashed cars, a huge, red sign. Each letter was nearly as big as his cab. He glanced up through his windshield as they drew closer and it looked like the whole sign maybe said ‘NO PARKING’ in all caps, going down the side of a large space at the base of the building. He wasn’t sure if it was a club or hotel, but it was probably one-hundred percent shady. The sign was huge though, and the glare of red would hide them unless the cops were right on top of them.

He went to the bottom of the sign and angled up, engaging ‘park’ near the end ‘N’ (right before the ‘G’ in ‘parking’). He was hugged up without even an inch to open his door against the side of the sign, the dark red glow from it filling the cab. With a couple jabs at the console, the lights were killed and then he cut the engine.

Just in time too.

Five minutes of shaky breathing techniques later and a floodlight swept through the fog behind the cab. It just barely missed the roof, all thanks to the sign. There was the nearly quiet hum of a squad car, the _bleep-bleep_ of their siren calling out once, and then the purr of acceleration. They were leaving.

Leave it to a city cop to give up after like-a-minute of searching. Lucky for Dave today, but seriously fucked for anyone actually in need of help. God their infrastructure was well and truly fucked. Nothing had taught Dave that more than being in the army.

“Hey, doll, we’re gonna lie low here for a bit. Make sure they’re truly off our tail,” Dave said loud enough that he could hear his voice echoing a bit in the near dead-silence of the fog. “And then maybe, after we get you checked over and patched up, you’ll tell me over lunch, or possibly dinner, why you had those cops so riled up? If that’s alright with you?”

Silence greeted his invitation. Only the electrical hum of the sign next to them could be heard. Dave craned his neck around to check the back seat, only to find his passenger laid out against the backrest of it, unresponsive, arms flailed out around his head.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself and jabbed the button for the partition before ripping off his straps and using the wheel as a handhold to flip himself around. Aiming for the back window and the edge of the seat, he carefully lowered his booted feet down, trying to be mindful of not stepping on or landing on the injured man below him.

Once his booted toes were touching solid surfaces, he ducked down into the back of the cab.

The poor, battered man below him twitched, wide, dazed eyes searching and watery with pain. His arms jerked around his head as he tried to get them between their bodies but Dave caught his wrists, gently circling each with his thumbs and middle fingers, trying to keep his touch light and nonthreatening.

“Hey, sweetheart, you’re alright. I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he soothed, gazing into those deep, soulful eyes that stared back with fear. “Sorry for tossin’ ya around like that.”

The man’s lower lip wobbled and the edges of his eyes limned with tears. The fear melted away to pleading and he parted sticky, dry lips.

“Please, priest,” he croaked and Dave frowned, found himself softly stroking his right thumb back and forth over the man’s delicate wrist.

“You don’t need a priest, darling. You’re hurt. I’m gonna take you to a doctor, alright. Get you feeling better,” Dave reassured.

The man blinked helplessly and tears rolled down his temples. Dave dropped one wrist and reached with his palm, cupping the man’s soft cheek and brushing away the damp tear track with his thumb. His heart broke at how the poor thing’s eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into the gentle touch.

“Priest Benji Nelissen,” he enunciated carefully in his raspy croak.

He opened his eyes and begged Dave with them as his voice cracked, “Please.”

Then he was limp, eyes rolling up and shut, strained breath leaving him in a sigh. Unconscious.

Shit.

Dave had a name. If this Sleeping Beauty would feel better in the care of this priest guy, then Dave would take him there. (Instead of a doctor.) And hopefully he would let himself heal up.

First Dave had to find him, though.

Then get there while avoiding the cops.

Shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so there's this series where Dave ends up working for The Commission and is a total badass but also so sweet on Klaus and it's the best thing ever okay? okay. Because like first, it presses all of my shippy romantical buttons but also, it's really close to how I think Dave is with Klaus so if you want to read some really good sappy Klave check it out. It's called [ Geocentrism Theory](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1325201) and it's *chef's kiss*  
> Anyway, I reread the whole thing to get some inspiration and move the creative juices around. Like how sometimes I go on my joking Robert Sheehan Thirst Blog that I made on tumblr like a week after The Umbrella Academy came out and I just go on there and scroll through pics of his pretty, pretty face to make myself write.
> 
> Anyway, I crave validation so comment or scream at me or swoon over these two with me because you know what, Robert Sheehan is a three course meal served up piping hot three times a day, and Cody Ray Thompson is an absolute snacc between those. You've basically got a whole gotdamn buffet between the two.
> 
> Puhlease


	7. Seno Akta Gamat! (or Seddan Akta Gamat?) (Seno Banté Akta Gamat?)?????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I contemplate the validity of the single comprehensive online source of The Divine Language for the Fifth Element movie since Luc Besson never released any information about it (and supposedly only him and Milla Jovovich could speak it) while also half-learning it as a language just to figure out what Leeloo Actually Says at that point in the movie
> 
> Also, Dave and Klaus introduce themselves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Going On An Adventure (in about a day's time??)
> 
> Enjoy luvs  
> ♥

 

Dave used his tablet to look up the priest. Just to be on the safe side he idled next to a diner, downloaded a temporary browser that automatically erased all traces of itself once closed, used a proxy to reroute his address, and searched the army’s encrypted database through a backdoor he most definitely didn’t leave when he hacked it while in the service. He also used a throwaway fake enlisted profile with supposedly limited access within the database, just to be sure.

He had picked up some skills in the FA. A wide variety of them. Had to do something with his down-times between missions, sims, and the daily grinds that happened between the other two. With the way the networks ran, he could be found, but they would have to have the motive to, the ability – which only existed higher up the foodchain and as far as he knew, the cops were the only ones who might be interested, which was small fish – beyond that, and then they would also have to know who, or what, to be looking for.

It took very little time since he planned it on the drive to the diner and mapped out his actions mentally to the second. No one would even notice him.

But even before that, he had to check over his precious cargo.

What he found was...disconcerting.

The guy wasn’t wearing any kind of actual clothing. He was wrapped in thermal bandages, designed to regulate temperature and provide modesty covering. It was the kind of shit only found in intensive med units. Or labs. And beyond that, while the guy was covered in grime and small wounds, and the bruising covering most of the outsides of his arm and leg on one side of his body from impact in the cab, he didn’t seem to have anything broken. No obvious internal bleeding. There was a knot on the side of his head that could be the reason he had fallen unconscious.

But it could have also been stress. Adrenaline crash. If the conclusions Dave was drawing up were correct.

It was the tatts on the guy’s palms that had him being extra cautious about finding the priest.

Four symbols were tattooed onto the guy’s palms – two per hand. They were a light brown, almost like those temporary henna drawings people got. And Dave would have thought they were exactly that except for how they were done. Each symbol was a set of lines, evenly spaced from what Dave could tell. And each line was made up of perfectly evenly spaced dots. Dots that had a very interesting paleness to the edges of them, almost like the scars he himself had from getting field stitches across the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

It made Dave think that maybe his beauty hadn’t dropped into his cab because he was a criminal, but maybe because he was escaping something. Like a lab. Where he was being experimented on.

Against his will.

Dave honestly wouldn’t put it past the government.

So he parked in the visitor’s zone for the priest’s apartment and very carefully pulled his cargo from his cab, legs first so he could scoop him up into a conscientious bridal carry. It took a bit of jostling and Dave hiking the beauty’s body up tight to his chest but the guy was mostly long, lean limb so Dave didn’t have a problem getting his arms up under him. Also, Dave had smartly made sure to tuck the arm that would be against his stomach over the guy’s own chest when he lifted him up, but there was nothing to be done for the one that hung down on his other side.

A kick to his cab’s back door had it slamming shut but nobody in the garage even glanced his direction.

It nearly knocked him off balance. Despite the beauty’s waifish appearance, he was solid. Heavier than he looked.

Dave made for the elevator in the center of the garage, thankful that it was a nicer, voice-activated one. (The shitty one in his shitty building still had fucking buttons.)

It was easy to find the priest’s door, once he was on the right floor. He used the tip of one boot to tap at the bottom of the door in an imitation of a knock.

He wasn’t expecting this priest guy – whoever the fuck he was exactly – to open the door, take one look at him cradling an unconscious, injured man and say, “Weddings are one floor down.”

And then try to shut the door in his face.

Dave stopped it with stomp from the bottom of his boot to the (real) wood. It swung violently back open, forcing the priest out of the way or to get slammed by it.

“First of all,” he said, stalking into the apartment and spinning to face the bewildered priest, who was a lot fucking shorter than he realized in the brief second he saw him at first. “What the fuck kind of backwards-ass thinking has you seeing an unconscious person being carried and jumping straight to wedding? Last I checked, besides bein’ hella fuckin’ illegal, that calls your personal morality into some serious, interrogative questioning. And by default whatever religion you claim to represent.”

The fucker just blinked tiredly at him before shoving the open door in such a way that it very slowly swung shut.

“No, please. Come in,” he monotoned. “Make yourself at home. No, of course, we’re not busy at all. How can we help you?”

“Feivel!” Another voice shouted from a hallway on the farther side of the pretty damn spacious apartment. The short priest clenched his jaw and flushed an angry red, a wild gleam appearing in his eyes as he turned to snap at the other man coming into the open-plan living space Dave was standing in.

“Five! You fucker!” The short one snapped at the other. “My name. Is _Five._ ”

“What have I said about the wedding thing?” The obviously older one hissed. His black hair was slicked back with a side-part and his face was drawn with more than annoyance at his counterpart. And now, seeing this man’s get-up compared to the short one’s, Dave realized that maybe this guy was the priest he was looking for.

“Look,” he interjected into what might have been a tired argument between them. “I don’t know what kind of religion you’re a part of but this guy here—” And at that Dave had to shift the beauty because his arms were going numb, but he was also making a point. “—dropped straight through the roof of my cab, started speaking some kind of bizarre language I’ve never encountered in my life, and then asked to see whichever of you is Benji Nelissen before passing out.”

“That would be me,” said the older one, stepping closer. “Sorry for my mentee’s behavior. He’s a work in progress.”

“Screw you, old-man,” Five, a kid Dave was realizing, grit out before storming off down the hallway. Looking at the priest, he didn’t actually seem that old. Younger than Dave maybe. Or perhaps closer to the same age. 

“Anyway, you mentioned this man was looking for me? I’ve never seen him before in my life. I have no idea who he is.” The priest smiled genially at him, the absent kind of question in his eyes that everyone got when they didn’t really care what was going on and had to be polite while wishing whoever was speaking would just go away. Dave could feel that look on his face sometimes, with chatty fares.

“No one does,” he said, trying hard not to sneer out an insult on the end of that sentence as his own thin patience was ready to snap. “There’s no evidence of him in any ID databases. I know. I double-checked. Police were after him. The only thing he’s got are these tattoos on his palms that didn’t appear in any records either.”

“Wait, did you say palm-tattoos?” Benji, this priest guy, asked, whole demeanor changing while he rushed at Dave so suddenly that Dave instinctively turned to shield the unconscious man from him.

“Yeah, really weird ones at that. And since I was thinking they were a little off looking, and that circumstances being what they are with the evidence that he was escaping from somewhere, well, you knowing about them is making me think bringing him here was a mistake.”

“No!” Benji yelled, throwing his hands up. “No mistake. Please. Let me see one of his palms. I need to know if he is who I think he is.”

Dave almost said “fuck you” and bolted (granted that his escape would be difficult and a little awkward, what with having to battle a closed door while carrying a whole-ass person just to leave the apartment). The pleading in the priest’s eyes stopped him.

He didn’t move when Father Benji crept closer and delicately lifted the beauty’s dangling palm up to his face, examining the tattoos.

“He— He’s— The F— Fff— Fi-Fifth Elem-m-ment,” he stammered out, staring at Dave in absolute shock before fainting with a dopey grin.

Dave stared in a different kind of shock at his crumpled body on the floor for a long minute before turning toward the hall.

“Hey, Kid!” He hollered only to get back, “Not a kid!”

Not-a-kid emerged from the hallway, though, so, Dave considered it a win.

“You should probably wake your mentor back up before I slap him to get the job done.”

“Would be kind of hard to do while carrying a person,” Five mumbled but knelt down next to Father Benji.

There was a comfortably large couch nearby and Dave abandoned the two to gently deposit this _“Fifth Element”_ guy down on it. He pondered what that meant as he tucked the guy’s thin arms down his sides and brushed a few ringlets away from his face. The fifth element to what? Was this priest just going to want to use him like the people in the labs were before he escaped? Is that why he was held to begin with? For being this “fifth element?”

Behind him, Father Benji stirred.

“You’re not a Jewish denomination, despite the kid’s name being blatantly Jewish. Hell, you don’t seem to be part of any kind of religious sect I’ve seen before,” Dave said, speaking to the measured up-down of his beauty’s chest. There was a tiny part of his brain filing away every little detail and trembling over the way the stupid bandages only seemed to emphasize the soft slope of his chest and his belly, the delicate muscle definition, while hiding away his nipples and groin so effectively that a percentage of Dave was just burning with curiosity and desire.

It was a good thing he was so internally aware and good at compartmentalizing, as he shelved all of it to focus on the thread of the conversation. You know, the important things.

“It’s because we’re not _a part_ of _any_ religion. We hide within them. Our order can be traced back to the ziggurats of Sumeria,” Father Benji stated, almost distracted but his words held weight. There was a shuffle and Dave turned to find him knee-walking in a disarray, his loose, long vest tugged half-off of one shoulder and his long-sleeved undershirt twisted. His shaking hands reached for the man unconscious on his couch, landing on a shoulder and reverently petting down to one boney wrist.

Dave had the ridiculously possessive urge to knock those hands away.

Once again, the look on Father Benji’s face made him keep himself in check. His eyes were shining with wonder and genuine awe.

“Our task,” he said so quietly it was almost a whisper, gaining volume as he spoke. “Is and always has been protection, preservation, and preparation. For him. When he awoke.”

He ducked his head, pressing it to the back of the hand he picked up and clasped tightly.

“I was supposed to be there,” he breathed, to himself, admonished. Dave shifted his weight, confused and not even sure where to start. All previous information wasn’t slotting into this new information in any way that made sense.

“Five!” Father Benji sprang to his feet. “Clothes! He will need clothes! The nicest you can find. And I—”

He turned to rush past Five, who was staring wide-eyed at their man on the couch, apparently stunned by something. He barely blinked as Father Benji stumbled by him but he visibly jumped when the father grabbed his shoulders.

“We have to prepare!”

And then he pointed at Dave.

“Wake him!” He ordered and then softened both his excitement and his tone. “But gently. He’s had a rough trip.”

“Yeah, I was there when he landed,” Dave only kind of joked. But Father Benji didn’t hear him, apparently, since he was still grinning and trembling.

“We’re saved! He is mankind’s— the _universe’s_ most precious possession!”

And then he was spinning off down the hall muttering, “—didn’t contact me, didn’t even let me know there was a possible survivor! Don’t know why I thought—”

Five followed behind him at a more dazed pace.

Which left Dave with the task of waking the sleeping beauty who was somehow more important than he realized when he inadvertently snatched him out of the government’s grasp.

In all honesty, Dave didn’t exactly believe this priest about his claims but he sure seemed happy to see a complete stranger who he could only identify by a set of tattoos. But he didn’t have to tell Dave that the guy that had crashed into his life via the roof of his cab was special. He could see it in the glimmer of his green eyes as soon as they peeked at him from the back of his cab.

No matter what, he had to wake the man because there was no way he went through all this trouble just to dump him and walk away. He would get a confirmation that things were alright before he left.

If he left.

Dave slowly lowered the edge of his ass onto the edge of the couch cushion, angled toward his beauty’s face, angular features soft in unconsciousness. Alone and unguarded, Dave leaned in, propping one hand on the back of the couch as he drank his fill with a roving eye. His fingertips hovered over delicate features before he brushed them across the beauty’s forehead, edging along dark eyebrows to nudge a few more curls to the side. The side of his thumb followed the slope of the beauty’s nose and he dragged the backs of his fingers across one soft cheek with a firmer pressure.

“Hey, darling,” he whispered. “It’s time to wake up now. You’ve got your priest waiting on you.”

There wasn’t even the twitch of a long-lashed eyelid. Dave’s fingers followed the line of his beauty’s jaw and his thumb landed on the surprisingly soft hair of his goatee.

“Come on, sweetheart. Open those beautiful eyes.”

Without thinking about it, he started rubbing the pad of his thumb back and forth just under that plump lower lip, transfixed by the way the movement barely tugged and pushed at it in a way that made it look even plumper.

He hadn’t realized just how much closer he’d subconsciously leaned over until his beauty’s breath puffed across his own lips.

Dave froze, half-horrified at what he had almost done. Like a magnet, he had just drifted closer and closer... Unthinking. Stupid.

Before he could pull back, his beauty squirmed and tipped his chin.

Dave— 

Dave was kissing him.

Their lips were touching and his heart was throbbing.

His beauty was definitely awake now. Completely still, except that in the half-a-second Dave’s brain had shorted out, his fingers had wrapped around the grip of Dave’s gun in its holster on his thigh and Dave could feel the barrel of it brushing his temple.

Dave slowly pushed back up and away, eyes closed and lips bitten together.

“Sorry,” he forced out, surprisingly less worried about the gun poised to blow his head clean off his shoulders and more worried about having upset his beauty.

His fare.

The man.

This fifth element guy.

He opened his eyes, ready to try with a proper apology only to find the guy had shifted up onto his knees, teeth bared and eyes blazing angrily. His curls had fallen back into his eyes and Dave found him achingly pretty even as the focus of all that anger.

“Seddan akta gamat,” he snarled and Dave’s hands found their way up in the open-palm gesture universally known as ‘unarmed and ready to cooperate.’

“You’re right, you’re right,” Dave stammered, choosing to remain on the couch as the man uncurled up onto his bare feet, gun still trained on Dave. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Seddan akta gamat,” the guy repeated and emphasized with a shove of the gun to the other side of Dave’s head.

“I deserve that,” he muttered. Then louder, “I was, uh, hoping you remembered me from earlier. You know, when you dropped into my cab.”

Dave shifted around a little to face the guy and found him frowning in confusion.

“You know, ‘boom.’ Remember? Bada boom? Big bada boom?”

The confusion faded away to suspicion. Maybe he remembered but Dave had fucked up and gone from _“trustworthy stranger”_ to _“don’t ever come near me again, you creep.”_

The beauty chanced a glance around the room and it occurred to Dave that he had just woken up in a completely unfamiliar environment to Dave violating his space. And kissing him. (The latter wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the former.)

“We’re at the priest’s place,” he offered and the guy’s alert, ready-to-spring posture straightened up, the pleasant surprise of it coloring his still distrustful gaze.

“Priest Benji Nelissen? This is his apartment.”

“Ben-ji?” The man sounded out with hesitant inquisition.

“Yeah, yeah, he, uh, told me to wake you up gently. I really didn’t mean to kiss you. It was mostly an accident but I still shouldn’t have been that close, so, very sorry about that. Not that I didn’t want to kiss you. Because I did— do. Just not...like that. Not without you wanting to kiss me, too. Also. As well. My ex wasn’t much interested in me after a couple years of marriage and I found that I just really don’t like being interested in men who aren’t interested in me. It’s like—  . . . ...Why am I even trying to explain this to you? You probably don’t understand a word I’m saying.”

Dave sighed and fell backward against the back of the couch and, with his defeated posture, the beauty’s gun-arm relaxed even as it stayed steadily trained on Dave.

“Okay,” Dave muttered to himself, contemplating the situation.

He inhaled deeply and levered up onto his feet, keeping the backs of his calves touching the couch. The gun was predictably raised with him, level with his face. Dave wasn’t worried though. He would have been shot already if the beauty really wanted to and now, as long as Dave presented himself as relaxed and nonthreatening, there was little chance of that changing. He kept his hands out to his sides with his palms open and offered the beauty a reserved smile.

“Let me...try this again,” he said slowly, holding eye contact (not like it was a hardship). He brought one hand to his chest.

“I’m David Katz. You are?”

He held that same hand out with the palm up to the beauty.

The man looked between his hand and his face, dark brows scrunched together and his mouth a puzzled twist. Dave stood still, waiting, worried that he wouldn’t be understood...

“Klausillixtus Zhenbaožidar Si-Kiyokogita-U Ekbat de Sebat.”

Dave blinked at him, taking in what was hopefully the beauty’s name. Certainly a mouthful. And at the speed it was spit out (everything except “de seh baht”), it was hopeless that Dave would be able to repeat even a little bit of it. He hoped one day it might roll out of his mouth as easily, but that day was not this one.

“Do you have a nickname? Something shorter?” he asked and watched the beauty mouth the shape of “nick-name.”

“I’m David, but I’m called Dave,” he tried, as an example. He touched his chest again. “Dave.”

The crinkle between the beauty’s brows got deeper.

Dave raised his hands up with a wide gap between them and then brought them together so there was only a couple inches between.

“Shorter?”

He repeated the motion but with his names. Then he pinched his fingers with a gap.

“Little name.”

Something had to get through. The guy clearly understood a little English or was able to make connections quick enough to figure it out. Though Dave did feel a bit like an idiot as he was watched from beneath the edge of thick curls. And maybe his beauty did understand but was allowing him to go on, making a fool of himself, in a bit of justified petty revenge.

The beauty then bit his bottom lip in a contemplative pout. Dave’s gut swooped.

“Klaus,” he said in his quiet rasp, but with his accent and the slowness he said it, it sounded more like, _“Kla-uus.”_

A blast of cool relief hit Dave in the chest.

“Klaus,” he repeated with a smile, tasting the way it sat in the center of his mouth. “It suits you.”

He got a shy, twitchy smile – reluctantly genuine. Then Klaus’ eyes narrowed at him again, as though he were just remembering he was angry at Dave. Fair enough. He wasn’t quite forgiven. That’s okay. One day he could be though.

It was then that Father Benji swept back into the room wearing a billowing, dark blue robe with forest-green stitching and a full-length leather breastplate that had been dyed a marbleized white and hardened to a lustrous shine. The same markings from Klaus’ hands were stamped onto the chest of it in a neat block with a metallic, scarlet ink. The bottom of the ceremonial armor extended into a scaled skirt around the hips.

Klaus wheezed and when Dave looked back at him, he realized it was him laughing. A tired, relieved thing, that built into a shocky giggle before he dropped Dave’s gun – leaving Dave to swoop down and snatch it up in case it hit the ground and misfired – and launched himself at the Father. Father Benji startled but opened his arms to catch him, clutching some kind of golden wand in one of the hands he had wrapped around Klaus’ nearly bare back.

Five stumbled into the room right into the spectacle they created, tripping over the clothes dragging from the pile in his arms, and almost took the three of them down. As it was, Father Benji leapt back out of the way and Klaus ended up buried under the mound of tangled fabrics while Five lie sprawled on the floor over his feet.

Dave chuckled at the display and that caught Father Benji’s attention.

“Who are you, again?” he asked, pursing his lips.

“David...Katz— Dave,” Dave said. He held his hand out to Father Benji. “And you, Father Benji—”

“Please, just Ben is fine.”

“You were telling me about your order—”

“I was, you’re right, I was doing that wasn’t I? But you see, Klausillixtus is very tired and he has a lot of catching up to do before we go on another little trip together so it really is time for you to be on your way. Thank you for delivering him into my care. It truly means the universe.”

And the whole time he was speaking Father Benji— Ben, was ushering him toward the door as behind him Klaus popped up from the center of the pile of clothes holding a thin kimono cardigan covered with pastel-pink flowered accents. A huge grin split his face and Dave pushed back against the Father, not ready to leave.

“Wait, wait, Father Ben—”

“Just Ben.”

“—I would like to speak with him, make sure he’s okay now.”

“Oh, he’s definitely fine now. I have a sworn duty to see to his every need and care. I can do no less for him. Don’t worry. Besides, he doesn’t speak very much English.”

They were at the door now and Dave planted his hands on either side of the door frame, using his slight height on the Father to loom him into backing off just for a moment.

“Speaking of that... What was that bizarre language anyway?”

Father Ben’s jaw dropped and he stared at Dave, appalled and accusing.

“It’s not bizarre! It’s _Divinian._ The Divine Language. The language of The Ancients!”

“Oh. Right. ...And what exactly does _‘seddan akta gamat’_ mean?”

Horror overtook Father Ben’s expression and he shoved Dave in the chest hard enough to dislodge him.

“‘Never without my permission,’ Asshole!”

And then the door was slammed in his face, the locks on the other side engaged.

Dave rubbed his mouth.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay no but really I hunted down [This Dictionary and Guide to Divinian](https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AHB0MaVWJi36nfk&id=134841B808951947%215994&cid=134841B808951947) just so I could use something real(ish??) for it because if it exists I have to use it (see: Mis Ills where I put in a bunch of Vulcan phrases) but that led me to translating "seno akta gamat" as "him without permission." Which I thought was weird since Cornelius says it's "never without my permission."
> 
> So according to The Guide "seddan akta gamat" would be the actual phrase for "never without permission."
> 
> But also, I found that "deno" means "you (neutral)" and "veno" means "her" so theoretically, following this pattern, _deno_ is you(neutral) and _veno_ is you(feminine) and then _seno_ is you(masculine). In which case the phrase is "you (man) [would] without [my] permission?"
> 
> Theoretically "Seno banté akta gamat" would also work as "you (man) would without [my] permission."
> 
> aaaaannnywaaayyyyy  
> I accept all forms of currency - shoutings, first-borns, critiques, exclamations, death threats, copy/pastes + reactions.....


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